Present day video games, particularly those which display many moving objects in a virtual three-dimensional world, are exceedingly complex. Video game developers may require years to design, develop, and perfect such complex video games.
Prior to release, high quality video games are exhaustively tested by many game testers who attempt to recreate all possible game sequences during the testing process. Inevitably, such testing results in the discovery of actual game bugs, suspected game bugs, and game design deficiencies which require analysis and correction.
In a typical prior approach to monitoring and analyzing such program bugs, a video game tester, upon playing a game under test and noting a bug, would document on a “problem description” form, a description of the detected error in game play. Additionally, the tester may associate a tester recorded sequence of game screen displays to provide a visual depiction of the error sequence. The tester, in such a typical prior art approach, would then transport his or her problem description form, together with an error documenting tape, to a project coordinator. The project coordinator would likewise be the recipient of problem description forms and associated tapes from each of the other testers testing the game under test.
The project coordinator would then enter all the bug data from the product descriptions form into a data base. The coordinator would also associate any video tape segments the coordinator thought necessary to document the bug to generate a master tape record for the game.
A copy of the project coordinator's compiled listing of game bugs which, for example, might include 100 identified bugs, would typically be transmitted to a game developer via facsimile. The game developer who, for example, may be located in the United Kingdom or Japan, due to the time zone differential would often not be present to receive such a facsimile transmission. The developer often would be unable to immediately address any of the bugs in question.
In accordance with the illustrative embodiments of the present invention, a product testing and bug tracking apparatus is described which advantageously permits a twenty-four hour a day, seven days a week, communication capability between game testers, project coordinators, game developers and others involved in the testing and debugging process. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an Internet-based, secure communications system is utilized for enabling communications between a video game tester, project coordinator and others with a game developer.
In the illustrative embodiments described herein, a master bug log which compiles all uncovered bugs is accessible by a game developer and other authorized system users via a web server, which stores bug tracking system applications programs and associated data bases. Such a master bug log includes a file attachment capability permitting a digitized image file replicating a video game display screen sequence depicting the bug, to be attached for downloading to, for example, a game developer.
Advantageously, the illustrative embodiments provide the game developer with the capability of performing a wide range of bug sorting operations so that bugs can be analyzed from many different vantage points at an authorized user's discretion. Bugs may be sorted, for example, so that a game developer can retrieve only those bugs having a digitized file attachment. Sorting may take placed based on any of a large number of fields entered in the master bug log, as will be explained in detail herein. The present exemplary embodiments permit customized fields to be added and used as sort criteria. For example, in a racing game, bugs may be categorized and sorted based upon involvement with a particular vehicle or driver.
Game and debugging related messages may be exchanged between testers, project coordinators, and corporate contacts. If the game developer normally communicates in, for example, Japanese, e-mail type format messages are translated so that significant game related messages may be promptly analyzed by all parties involved.
The game developer and other authorized users are provided with a wide range of information about the hardware and software utilized during the testing process including, for example, whether a particular player controller, video game platform, and/or whether particular debugging software was utilized by a tester (which may itself be a source of introduced bugs).
An editing function is advantageously utilized to permit, for example, a tester to enter a bug description and a project coordinator to edit the tester's description to place it in a form better for analysis by a game developer and to add helpful comments for resolving the identified problem. The present exemplary embodiments permit a translator to provide a translation of a bug description, for example, entered by a tester to permit a foreign developer to immediately substantively address downloaded bug related information.
The illustrative embodiments of the present invention advantageously use multiple security layers to preclude one developer from accessing information related to a game under test developed by another developer. The present exemplary embodiments utilize, for example, encryption to encrypt transmissions over the Internet so that a clear text transmission cannot be retrieved by unintended recipients. Additionally, a user's password and/or name are encrypted to assist in precluding an unauthorized party from access to a bug related database.
Although the present invention is illustrated herein in the context of tracking errors in video game software, the present invention also may be used to track bugs in a wide array of other software packages, particularly where prompt communication between remotely located team members is important.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the exemplary embodiments of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.